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We celebrated the new year on East coast time with fireworks and poppers. We also shot off a bunch of fireworks in the driveway. Fun was had by all.

Sam has announced that he is Tinky-Winky-Sam. He looks like a Teletubbie in his snowsuit. He is the snow-meister. He is usually the first one out and the last one back in. Today he was sledding and having a ball. He even sounds like a teletubbie when he giggles sledding down the hill.

Today we finally started getting lots of snow in Tahoe. Sam was the snow-meister, he went outside before the other kids and cried when he had to come back in because everyone else came back in. Katy is getting better and better at skiing. She had a private lesson yesterday. Margaret had a lesson as well. She did well. She is ready for the chair lift next time. Pokie got to try out her new skis yesterday as well. Hopefully, she will get to spend a little more time on skis this year. More pictures will be posted when we get home after the new year. The blizzard pictures are here.

Another fun Christmas at the Greer household. The children of course were very excited. We had all of Elizabeth’s family and their families here. Cousins, uncles, …

Today was the day for Christmas parites at the children’s schools. Sam sang a couple of songs (you can see the video). Sam also got to go to Margaret’s party and he sat around and read books most of the time.

Katy had her piano recital today. You can watch the video here. It is a little shakey because Sam was sitting on my lap while I was taking the video. Margaret behaved very well during the recital. She sat through the entire thing without really complaining. Sam had the most fun.

After the recital, all the children went and jumped on the trampoline.

We had pictures taken with Santa today. Sam went first and he was a bit afraid. Just added more pictures. There was a photographer there from the local ImageSnap place (you are supposed to go buy lots of prints). We just bought all the pictures on a CD.

Today was also the day to trim the tree. It was Margaret’s turn to put the star on the top. Once that was done, I went and turned it around to face the right direction. Mostly, the children and Elizabeth do the trimming, I just watch. This year, I think we set a new record. The first ball that was touched was dropped and broken. We then decided that maybe sam shouldn’t hang the breakable stuff. Here is a movie of Sam dancing and playing his guitar to Christmas music.

Margaret had her first try at riding a two wheeler today. We took the traning wheels and pedals off her bike and she practiced balancing for a while. Then she wanted to put the pedals back on and she did pretty well with that as well. A few more times and she will be riding all over the place. Sam took his tricycle down and was going all around with it.

Spent the day at the San Diego Wildlife Park. The park is huge, there is really no way to cover the whole thing in a day. It is really nice with lots of open spaces and lots of different kinds of animals. However, for me I think about 3 different types of antelope is enough.

They have a train that takes you on a big tour around most of the park that you can’t actually walk to and see. This is really nice, they have a tour guide that tells you a lot about the animals. Ours had the worst attitude of any tree hugger I have ever met. She mostly just complained about how this animal is extinct, how bad that is, and how it is somehow my fault.

The park needs to get rid of a few tree huggers and hire some good capitalists. There were almost no signs from the freeway to the park, everything at the park that involved money took absolutely forever. I was also amazed how much erosion was in the park. The pretty valley that the park is in seems to be pretty arid. Anywhere that there were animals, there seemed to be lots of erosion. I guess if you care about animals, you don’t really care about the soil.

When we got back, the kids played on the beach for a little while. We are staying at the Navy Lodge on North Island NAS. It is about $35 a night and right on the beach. Here are a few pictures.